Is there more to using SQL in Azure than redirecting your connection string?http://sqlblog.com/blogs/greg_low/archive/2013/07/09/is-there-more-to-using-sql-in-azure-than-redirecting-your-connection-string.aspxAt SQL Down Under , we've been working quite a lot over the past year with customers that are moving some of their applications to cloud-based systems, and mostly on Windows Azure. One message that I often hear about using Windows Azure SQL Database (WASD)enCommunityServer 2.1 SP2 (Build: 61129.1)re: Is there more to using SQL in Azure than redirecting your connection string?http://sqlblog.com/blogs/greg_low/archive/2013/07/09/is-there-more-to-using-sql-in-azure-than-redirecting-your-connection-string.aspx#50007Tue, 09 Jul 2013 07:35:49 GMT21093a07-8b3d-42db-8cbf-3350fcbf5496:50007GrantH<p>#6. Error handling</p>
<p>Do yourself a favour and implement the Transient Fault Handling Application Block (<a rel="nofollow" target="_new" href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh680934">http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh680934</a>(v=PandP.50).aspx) in both your on-premises and cloud solutions. </p>
<p>In the cloud, you should expect connections to be dropped and commands that need to be retried.</p>
<p>On-premises, it can help your application survive a connection reset after a cluster failover or and AlwaysOn Availability Group failover.</p>re: Is there more to using SQL in Azure than redirecting your connection string?http://sqlblog.com/blogs/greg_low/archive/2013/07/09/is-there-more-to-using-sql-in-azure-than-redirecting-your-connection-string.aspx#50017Wed, 10 Jul 2013 03:40:25 GMT21093a07-8b3d-42db-8cbf-3350fcbf5496:50017Greg Low<p>Hi Grant, while I agree that it's needed, I don't see fault tolerance as just an Azure-related issue. I regularly visit organizations where they've implemented highly-available systems (and spent a fortune on them), yet as soon as they failover (like they're designed to do), most of the applications in the building break. That's not a good story on or off premises.</p>
re: Is there more to using SQL in Azure than redirecting your connection string?http://sqlblog.com/blogs/greg_low/archive/2013/07/09/is-there-more-to-using-sql-in-azure-than-redirecting-your-connection-string.aspx#50022Wed, 10 Jul 2013 20:11:24 GMT21093a07-8b3d-42db-8cbf-3350fcbf5496:50022Joe<p>+1 to GrantH. My company went from onsite to Azure last year without implementing Transient Fault Handling Application Block, and there are days where we are bombarded by error emails due to dropped connections. To my knowledge, we never once had that problem when we were hosting the database.</p>
<p>To be honest, when I saw this article, I assumed fault handling would be at least in the top 2; while I understand Greg's point about this being non-SQL Azure specific, it's certainly a bigger concern when going off-site in my experience, so it becomes even more pertinent to ensure that the code base can handle it.</p>re: Is there more to using SQL in Azure than redirecting your connection string?http://sqlblog.com/blogs/greg_low/archive/2013/07/09/is-there-more-to-using-sql-in-azure-than-redirecting-your-connection-string.aspx#50096Sun, 14 Jul 2013 09:11:16 GMT21093a07-8b3d-42db-8cbf-3350fcbf5496:50096ta.speot.is<p>My understanding is that ADO .NET in .NET 4.5.1 has been updated to handle transient faults somewhat transparently.</p>re: Is there more to using SQL in Azure than redirecting your connection string?http://sqlblog.com/blogs/greg_low/archive/2013/07/09/is-there-more-to-using-sql-in-azure-than-redirecting-your-connection-string.aspx#50106Mon, 15 Jul 2013 01:09:43 GMT21093a07-8b3d-42db-8cbf-3350fcbf5496:50106Greg Low<p>Yes, I'm keen to do some testing on that. It's called &quot;Idle connection resilence&quot; in the documentation. While that no doubt will help to keep a connection alive, there are many other aspects to achieving reliable transaction processing.</p>
re: Is there more to using SQL in Azure than redirecting your connection string?http://sqlblog.com/blogs/greg_low/archive/2013/07/09/is-there-more-to-using-sql-in-azure-than-redirecting-your-connection-string.aspx#50109Mon, 15 Jul 2013 04:59:37 GMT21093a07-8b3d-42db-8cbf-3350fcbf5496:50109David McGhee<p>Nice work Greg. Very good advice</p>re: Is there more to using SQL in Azure than redirecting your connection string?http://sqlblog.com/blogs/greg_low/archive/2013/07/09/is-there-more-to-using-sql-in-azure-than-redirecting-your-connection-string.aspx#50311Tue, 30 Jul 2013 09:52:18 GMT21093a07-8b3d-42db-8cbf-3350fcbf5496:50311WAS..<p>I stopped reading when I saw you rip off WASD in a non-keyboard related way. </p>re: Is there more to using SQL in Azure than redirecting your connection string?http://sqlblog.com/blogs/greg_low/archive/2013/07/09/is-there-more-to-using-sql-in-azure-than-redirecting-your-connection-string.aspx#50323Tue, 30 Jul 2013 22:07:43 GMT21093a07-8b3d-42db-8cbf-3350fcbf5496:50323Greg Low<p>What a bizarre comment. How can anyone &quot;rip off&quot; any acronym? Most acronyms are overloaded. My guess is that in just two years from now, WASD will be associated with &quot;Windows Azure SQL Database&quot; more than it will be associated with WASD keyboards.</p>